The two men went through a side door and down a dark alley, going in at the back door of a saloon. Mud lay deep in the alley and The Skipper sloshed through it, splattering Sam’s clothes and face. In the saloon at a table facing Sam, with a bottle of French wine between them, he began explaining. “I’ve a note coming due at the bank in the morning and no money to pay it,” he said. “When I have a note coming due I always have no money and I always get drunk. Then next morning I pay the note. I don’t know how I do it, but I always come out all right. It’s a system--Now about this strike.” He plunged into a discussion of the strike while men came in and out, laughing and drinking. At ten o’clock the proprietor locked the front door, drew the curtain, and coming to the back of the room sat down at the table with Sam and The Skipper, bringing another bottle of the French wine from which the two men continued drinking. “That man from Pittsburgh busted up your place, eh?” he said, turning to Sam. “A man came in here to-night and told me. He sent for the typewriter people and made them take away the machines.” When they were ready to leave, Sam took money from his pocket and offered to pay for the bottle of French wine ordered by The Skipper, who arose and stood unsteadily on his feet. “Do you mean to insult me?” he demanded indignantly, throwing a twenty-dollar bill on the table. The proprietor gave him back only fourteen dollars. “I might as well wipe off the slate while you’re flush,” he observed, winking at Sam. The Skipper sat down again, taking a pencil and pad of paper from his pocket, and throwing them on the table. “I want an editorial on the strike for the Old Rag,” he said to Sam. “Do one for me. Do something strong. Get a punch into it. I want to talk to my friend here.” Putting the pad of paper on the table Sam began writing his newspaper editorial. His head seemed wonderfully clear, his command of words unusually good. He called the attention of the public to the situation, the struggles of the striking girls and the intelligent fight they had been making to win a just cause, following this with paragraphs pointing out how the effectiveness of the work done had been annulled by the position taken by the labour and socialist leaders. “These fellows at bottom care nothing for results,” he wrote. “They are not thinking of the unemployed women with families to support, they are thinking only of themselves and their puny leadership which they fear is threatened. Now we shall have the usual exhibition of all the old things, struggle, and hatred and defeat.” When he had finished The Skipper and Sam went back through the alley to the newspaper office. The Skipper sloshed again through the mud and carried in his hand a bottle of red gin. At his desk he took the editorial from Sam’s hands and read it.